1995 TO 2008 PART 2
• Team ASL "A Spanish Life"

Time has a way of marching on without you knowing it, and as I findmyself closing the pages to my early experiences in Moldova in 1994,another chapter is opening before me.

It’s now 2008 and time to tell you what has happened to these lost people ofthis abandoned country.

Fourteen years has gone by, has Moldova moved on? Have its people foundtheir place in the new world? What has become of the children and whatbecame of their hopes?

I have spent the last 14 years trying to help this is what happendHow Moldova got to where it is today is now not important as it has a newhistory.

The children of 1991, the year of independence are now taking over, theyare the teachers the doctors and soon they will be the government. They arean excited people who wish to experience the new world that is now beforethem.

The children from my school who had told me that their parents had nofood, no hope and no future, are now in their late 20’s and are runningthings. They now decide for their parents what their future will be.But what about the old ways and the old people that was once so importantin the order of things? They have been left behind what they stood for in thedays of communism is dead. Even its history is not taught any more, whatthey stood for and believed in with all their hearts will soon die with them.It’s like the 70 years of Communism did not exist, it never happened. If youstop a teenager in the street and ask them what they know about the oldways, or what they know about Stalin or Lenin, they would probably not beable to give you much of an answer. I met a history teacher begging in thestreet not so many years ago, he was dirty with thread bare clothes holdingout an out stretched hand in hope, our eyes met and I recognizing him frommy time as a teacher at the university; I was shocked to see that he hadfallen to such a low point in life.The situation was simple, he told me the government have banned history,they want people to forget the mistakes they had made. This meant myfriend hadn’t any work and would never have any again, his career was nowover, and so was his life.

How can you ban history I had thought, had things changed that much orwas the government still in control?It’s been a long and hard 14 years since I first arrived on the train platformin Chisinau the capital of Moldova, some good people who helped us arenot here any more and others we love will be gone soon.

I am proud to be able to say that I did my bit, I never abandoned Moldovaand its people, I introduced many good Westerners to its plight. Some didnothing, only talking about how they would help and how bad the worldwas, others changed the lives of thousands. They, like me took the people ofthis country to their hearts, and have made a difference and saved lives.This is now not just my story or even Moldova’s, it’s now the story ofpeople on both sides of the border line, and how they changed each other’slives. The Western businessman may have come with his millions, but hebecame the best of friends with people at the very bottom of the ladder wholived in a mental home and had to fight with each other for food and life itsself.

The lady from Taunton came with her boxes of food and clothes, but tookaway the love of many who she looked after. Or the churchgoers with theirhandfuls of hope and love, all took a part of Moldova home with them.Humility, love and understanding, was our gift and for some a great sense ofsorrow that I know will stay with us all and has change our lives forever.I was now on my way back to England to tell my country about Moldova.An unbelievable journey was about to start, one that would place me in verydangerous situations. I would be arrested many times by the police ofEastern Europe who would try to steal my aid my money and my liberty. Iwould be frog marched out of the country for protesting over the terribleconditions the orphans were living in, but I would overcome it all. I wouldeven find myself fighting in the street to save the life of a child. But I wasnot going to be alone on this journey. Yes, I had started on my own but soonothers will join in, others that would fight by my side to help Moldova.People are still starving and freezing to death every year in Moldova.Children are still living on the streets and eating from the rubbish bins.Romania its neighbour, in need for so many years has now become amember of the European Community, its now one of us. All the help thatarrived in the early years of independence made a difference to the peopleand today they are a full member of the civilized and free world that wehave lived in all our lives. But what about Moldova? Its still there, its stillwaiting for the help that should have come years ago, read the pages of mybook, learn about this forgotten country and then do something about it.